Banana Bread Crumb Cake

This cake came out of the oven mayyyyybe five minutes ago.  It’s supposed to cool for 10 minutes, but it smelled SO GOOD and I couldn’t wait to try it and then post about it so you could try it too (I’m just the nicest, aren’t I?)!  So here it is, all full of delicious banananess.  BF is gone this weekend with some friends for a football game and I am all alone with nothing to do but send him doofy-looking selfies and write a paper.  Naturally, this means I am baking up a storm.  And although I know he will tell me I should have spent more time working on my paper, I’m pretty sure if I give BF a piece of this cake he’ll forget all about that paper.  So this was most definitely a good use of my time.

The original post (found here) described this as a banana bread-crumb cake hybrid, but this is most definitely a cake.  Feel free to tell yourself it’s a banana bread if it will make you feel better about gorging yourself on it (no judgment here), but it’s got 4 cups of sugar in it so I don’t know how well that self-delusion will go. It makes a biiiiig 9×13 pan of cake, so you can just tell yourself that all that sugar and butter is distributed throughout and that a single piece isn’t that bad.  Or something like that.

Banana Bread Crumb Cake

• 2 c. Flour
• 3 tsp. Baking Powder
• 1 tsp. Salt
• 3 ripe Bananas
• 1/2 c. Butter, room temperature
• 2 c. Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 tsp. Vanilla (as you probably know by now, I always add way more vanilla than a recipe calls for and I have never once regretted it, so go nuts)
• 1 c. Milk

Crumb Filling/Topping

• 2 c. Flour
• 2 c. Light Brown Sugar
• 1 c. Butter, cold

Glaze (Optional)

• 1 c. Confectioner’s Sugar
• A few T. Milk

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9×13 pan.  In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.  In a large bowl, mash bananas til liquid.  Mix in butter til combined, then mix in sugar, eggs, and vanilla.  Gently mix in milk and flour til combined.

To make the crumb filling/topping, use a pastry cutter or fork to blend all ingredients til coarse crumbs.  Pour 1/2 of the cake batter into the pan, then top with 1/3 of the crumb filling.  Pour in remaining cake batter and top with remaining crumb mixture.  Bake 50-55 minutes, til a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes if you have more self-control than me.

To make the glaze, stir confectioner’s sugar with milk, adding a splash of milk at a time until it reaches the right consistency.  The cake can be served warm or at room temperature.

It’s a darn good thing BF will be home tonight so I don’t eat all of this alone.  But then again, this cake might be everything I need?  The jury’s still out.

But actually, one of the things I love most about baking is that it lends itself to sharing, and I’m lucky enough to have people in DC with whom I can share this cake.  With the holidays coming up this is a great time to make this cake and share it with the people you love.  I hope you (and they) enjoy it too!